Ruby and the Magic Talking Cat
by SumDumMuffin
Summary: Ruby gets a new ... friend? And that friend, may or may not have accidentally helped evoke positive change in her life while pursing entirely selfish goals.


Loosely inspired by _Bee and Puppycat._

* * *

-[][][]-

* * *

Ruby was walking home in the rain when she found a magic cat.

She didn't realize the cat was magic until she brought it home and it started talking.

* * *

Ruby reached out to pet the cat's head, after it awoke.

The cat hissed. "Don't you dare, peon."

"Woah," Ruby said. She grabbed her own face in wonder. "Are you like, a genie? Do I get a wish for saving you?"

The cat blinked. She was jet black with amber eyes, and she had a bow around her neck but no other identifying articles on her.

"Yeeesss," said the cat. She pontificated with her paw in what Ruby might have thought was a very human way, but what did she know about normal cat mannerisms- or normal human mannerisms, for that matter. "But you only get your wish after three weeks of feeding and housing me."

"Woah, okay," Ruby said. She jumped up and ran to the alcove of her apartment that held her mini-fridge and a couple drawers in which she kept food to fill the hole in her stomach.

"So, I have peanut butter sandwiches, pop tarts, and cookies, and some microwavable pizza bites." Ruby deposited a sample of each in front of the cat.

The cat blinked. "This is what you eat?"

Ruby shrugged, "Well, sometimes I also have - oh! One moment."

And Ruby ran back to the food alcove because she actually did have something in her fridge, and she wasn't just keeping it plugged in for the white noise of it's heat outtake fan.

* * *

So there was like a 50% chance that this was all just a hallucination, and even after that it was a like 30% chance the cat didn't actually grant wishes, but like, food was meant to be shared, right?

She hadn't taken the note off the lasagna, expressing sympathy for losing her job at the cafe.

Ruby scrunched her mouth, and the note, and brought the aluminum tin of food out to her couch.

* * *

"So, do cats eat lasagna?" Ruby said. She giggled. "Were the comics right?"

The cat made a face. "Well I'm not- erm, I mean. Erm. Regular cats don't, but as a magic wish-granting cat, I digest your human food."

"Well if you're able to digest all human food, that's evidence of magic," Ruby said, "Because a lot of our food's preeetty indigestible."

* * *

Ruby cut a piece of the cold lasagna for the magic talking cat, and another one for herself. She idly turned on the TV. Usually there was, like, a game show or a TV show that you could get distracted by easily if you just jumped in at any point-

"-with the CEO of Schnee Dust company offering a personal reward for the perpetrator." said the emergency broadcast, "She is likely to be a Faunus woman with a mammal aspect-"

The cat jumped onto Ruby's remote. "As a magic wish-granting cat," she said, "I must know of your story."

"Bluuuuugggh," Ruby said. She reclined on her couch. "What if I don't have one?"

The magic cat blinked. "That would be remarkable. Everyone has a story."

"Well, technically, probably," Ruby pontificated. "But what if your story's dumb and bad? And doesn't have any narrative structure at all?"

Ruby looked up at her favorite patch of ceiling drywall and let her voice drop into a low, musing tremble. "Like if you pitched your life story to a film exec, they'd be all 'what was that? That wasn't a _story_. Give me something marketable to at least 2 demographics."

The cat laughed, a little. Ruby felt strangely pleased.

"Well, in that case," said the cat, "Just, tell me about your past."

"I refuse."

The cat blinked.

"Fair enough," said the cat. She licked her paw. "Then, how about your present? What do you do?"

"Nothing, really," Ruby said.

The cat looked at her, expectantly. "Everyone does something. You've got, a TV, and you were outside for some reason yesterday?"

"Weekly grocery run," Ruby said. "And I just got fired again, so I get to go back to my routine of watching TV, maybe playing video games for weeks at a time-"

"That is rather auspicious for me," said the cat.

"And occasionally getting caught up on the news-"

The cat coughed. "Well, do you at least have a name?"

"Ruby," Ruby said. She idly reached down to her phone, to try to maybe see what that emergency broadcast was about-

"So video games, huh?" said the cat.

"Yeah, you know what those are?" Ruby sat up.

"Sure. But usually I'm into, long-form narrative single player video games."

"Huh. Well, like most gamers, I have a big backlog of those."

"I'd love to see some of them," said the cat.

"Sure," Ruby said.

* * *

The next day, Ruby woke up to see the cat was still there, which ruled out the theory that it was all just a dream. Ruby sat up on the couch, letting her blanket fall off of her.

"Do you usually sleep in until 5:00 PM?" asked the cat.

"Well, we did stay up until 2 last night. And if I don't have to work, I just sleep until I get a headache," Ruby said. She flopped back down on the couch. "And do I ever have a headache."

"I saw some painkillers in your medicine cabinet?"

"Nah," Ruby closed her eyes and tried to relax her neck. "Pain helps you know you're alive."

The cat was silent for a while, before she jumped up on the coffee table, right next to Ruby's face.

"Are you doing okay?" said the magic wish granting cat.

Ruby sat up. She stretched.

"Well, I mean," Ruby said, "Obviously."

"Obviously," the cat said. She looked around the slowly growing mess of clothing and plates around the living room.

"I'm alive, right?" Ruby said. She rubbed her neck. "At least, my headache says so."

"And I can eat whatever I want, and now I have all this free time to... play video games..."

"And hang out with friends?" said the cat.

"Nah, my friends are all," Ruby waved her hand, "doing important things."

"You can- pursue creative pursuits?"

"Not really. Not really the creative type."

"Well, how about we try going outside today?" said the cat.

"Bluh," Ruby said.

"C'mon. You were outside just yesterday."

"Exactly," Ruby said.

The cat scrunched her mouth to the side. "What if it was for a magic quest~"

"Sounds hard."

"Nah, it'll be easy. For your first magic quest, it's just, a quick, sort of, easter egg hunt."

"Ehhhhh..."

"And we have two hours before it gets dark, sooo, it should probably, be soon..."

"Ugh. Fine." Ruby said. "But lemme grab some food first."

* * *

Ruby managed to stuff the hole in her stomach while she got dressed. She pulled on her outdoor clothes and then her raincoat, since the air was still damp from yesterday's rain. She let the cat ride on her left shoulder, since the sidewalks were still damp from yesterday's rain.

"You know where the duck pond is?" Said the cat.

"Yeah," Ruby said. "My mom and I used to go out there sometimes, to feed the ducks and occasionally small children dressed as ducks trying to score free bread."

The cat blinked.

"But that's happened less often, since that big Schnee Company factory opened nearby," Ruby said.

"Interesting. Do you think they could be related?"

"I mean, obviously," Ruby said, "they're on record as having paid millions in environmental violations and the CEO's said some pretty inflammatory things in the media."

The cat blinked. "Wait, you know about that?"

"I mean, yeah? I read the news, occasionally-"

Ruby reached for her phone with her off hand but the cat switched shoulders. "So like, maybe you want to, hold them accountable?"

"Nah," Ruby said.

"I get that it might seem hard, but what if there was a simple thing you could do, to try to make the world better?"

"Still nah."

The cat scrunched her face. "Why not?"

"I mean, sure, they've done a lot of bad things," Ruby said, "But on the other hand, their head spokeswoman appeared as an option in that free dating sim that set of big companies released as part of a ploy to hijack memetic culture to market to younger generation."

The cat coughed. "What?"

"Yeah, and she was the tsundere option," Ruby smirked. "Don't tell me you don't want to date Weiss the belligerently charming Schnee Heiress~"

"I assure you, the real Weiss Schnee is significantly less belligerently charming than the version of her in their corporate propaganda," said the cat. She coughed. "I mean, as we can extrapolate just from, how these things always go - ah-"

The cat gestured towards one area around the duck pond. "So we're looking for a magical artifact-"

"Oh look, a flash drive," Ruby said. She picked up a small USB stick hidden under a nearby bush.

"Oh, yes. That actually was it," Said the cat. She coughed. "Don't you know that portable digital storage space is magic?"

"Makes sense." Ruby pocketed the drive.

"I guess, the smart thing to do would to perform a ritual known as 'backing up the contents-'" The cat waved her arms. "Would you be willing to use your personal computer to progress in this magic quest?"

Ruby shrugged. "Sure."

* * *

The contents turned out to be encrypted, but Ruby figured the cat would have tried to change the subject if Ruby tried looking into them. And then she said the next part of the quest involved dropping the drive somewhere.

"Bluh, we already went out today," Ruby said. It was actually kind of nice to, see the old duck pond in the cloudy aftermath of rain. It seemed a little less polluted than she remembered, even.

The cat shrugged. "Sure. You went out today, though- that's good."

"Sure," Ruby responded.

* * *

The next day, Ruby woke up at 2:00 PM, despite staying up just as late playing video games than the previous night.

"The next part of this quest involves going to the city."

"Bluh," Ruby said. She reclined on her couch. "So, what, we gotta take a train?"

"I can handle the fare, if that's what you're worried about."

Ruby blinked. "You have money?"

"Not, exactly."

Ruby sighed. "Well, then, I guess, let's get going."

* * *

At the train station, the cat did something with her ribbon, and procured a bus pass. The photo on it was for an elderly foreign man, though, so either it was borrowed, stolen, or the magic talking cat was a genie that could shapeshift, sometimes into an elderly foreign man.

"What?" said the cat, "A bus pass isn't exactly money."

"That is true," Ruby said.

* * *

They dropped the drive off at corner of a coffee shop. The cat did something with her ribbon again, and out popped a gift card, so she got Ruby a cookie.

"Oh, you didn't need to do that," Ruby said.

"Well, I got myself a cookie too," said the cat. "It wasn't entirely for your benefit."

* * *

Ruby didn't have anything particular she wanted to do in the city, and the cat seemed very interested in seeing how the next stage of Ruby's video game ended.

And on the way back to the train station, the cat climbed up next to Ruby's ear. "So, how fast can you run?"

"Well, I used to be in track and field," Ruby said. She idly stretched her arms.

"How about try running to the station, as fast as you can?"

Ruby shrugged. "To get away from those people tailing us?"

The cat coughed. "Noo~," she said. "Just, because, it might be good, to get some exercise."

Ruby shrugged again. "Sure."

And maybe the cat was right, in that it did feel kind of nice to sprint again.

* * *

A week later, Ruby's supply of peanut butter was running low, since now she had one and- maybe a half? -The cat seemed to eat a lot more than Ruby would have figured something like, an eighth the size of a person would. Was that how big cats were? It'd been so long since she was good at math.

Anyway, one point five human stomachs worth of eating food, and the cat didn't seem to like pop tarts or pizza bites.

Otherwise, it was pretty low-key. It was sort of nice to have someone else around the house, particularly someone responsible enough that Ruby didn't have to worry about being awake at certain times to make sure they were fed.

And besides the occasional magical quest, the magic talking cat seemed to be content to sit around the house, watching her play video games.

* * *

"So I can't help but notice," said the cat, over dinner, "That you don't have a kitchen."

"It's why my rent's so cheap," Ruby said. She stuffed a pop tart into her mouth.

"But that means, someone else made that lasagna for you." The cat pawed at her peanut butter sandwich, "And it was homemade, so it's someone who knows how to cook."

Ruby paused chewing. "Yeah."

"So why don't, we try to see them?" said the cat.

That latent hole in Ruby's stomach re-opened. "Ehhh."

"You don't want to?" said the cat, "Is it, not a positive experience for you?"

"I mean, it's usually a positive experience, seeing her," Ruby admitted.

"But...?"

"But it's like," Ruby said. She slumped back. "She used to really believe in me- She was my high school physics teacher, actually."

"Oh, cool-"

"And now, here I am, with half an engineering degree, unable to hold down retail jobs." Ruby lay on her back and closed her eyes.

The cat was silent for a while. Ruby didn't see her expression.

And then the cat's stomach growled, but she tried to cough to cover it up.

"Well," the cat said, "Maybe, she cares about you still? And maaaybee, she'd be willing to cook u- you, another, dinner?"

Ruby exhaled. "I- I dunno-"

There was a knock, at the door, just then.

Ruby sat up.

* * *

Turned out, it was one of those 'speak of the devil' situations.

"H-hey, Glynda." Ruby said. She rubbed the back of her head, and checked to see if she looked presentable enough in her pajamas.

(She didn't realize it at the time, but later the cat would tell her that Glynda did the exact same motion just then.)

"Hey," Glynda said, to the wall. "I, ah. Haven't, seen you for a while..."

"Oh! Um," Ruby said, to the ground. "Yeah..."

There was some awkward silence.

"Oh? did you get a cat?" Glynda said.

Ruby looked down to see that the magic talking cat was sitting right next to her.

Glynda reached out to pet the cat's head.

The cat hissed. "Don't you dare, peon."

"Cat~!" Ruby yelled.

The cat seemed taken aback at that-

"She doesn't have a name?" Glynda said.

"Of course I do."

"Wait, you do?" Ruby said.

"You never asked, Ruby," said the cat.

"Well did _you_ ask _my_\- oh yeah," Ruby said. She shot a smirk to Glynda. "And your first thought wasn't 'oh, this cat talks?'"

"Well I don't know," Glynda said. The corners of her mouth turned up, slightly, "Maybe you became a witch in the last week?"

"I assure you, I did not," Ruby said. She puffed out her left cheek.

"Well, um, anyway," Glynda lifted the bag she was carrying, "I brought a casserole, if you- if you want-"

"Oh!" said the cat. Her back unarched and she seemed to look presentable in a human way, which may or may not have been the same for cats, "Is this the person you said cared about y-"

Ruby moved the cat with her foot and made some distraction noises before the cat invited Glynda in to eat the casserole.

* * *

"So what is your name?" Glynda said to the cat, at the dinner table, after the three of them got a serving.

"You may call me," said the cat, with some aplomb, "Nightshade."

Glynda snorted. Ruby snorted.

"What, is that like, your code name for clandestine espionage missions?"

"Wha- _noo~_," said the cat, "That's my actual name-"

"I doubt that anybody's actually named 'Nightshade'," Glynda said.

"Well," said the cat, "What if I said my name was, honestly, 'Belladonna', which is a type of plant related to and sometimes colloquially referred to as 'nightshade'."

"Belladonna sounds more like a normal name," said Glynda. "At least, for a kind of witches familiar."

"And I did not become a witch in the last week," Ruby said. She puffed out her left cheek again. "Besides, if anyone would, it'd be you, since your last name."

"But good witches get, fairies or something, I'm pretty sure?" Glynda said.

"Well, are good witches significantly different from bad witches, or are there just witches, some of which are good and bad?" Ruby ventured.

And hat was a fun little, conversational tangent.

"So what are you up to?" Glynda asked. Ruby had been dreading that question.

"Well, sometimes I go on quests for Belladonna, here," Ruby said.

"Oh?" Glynda asked.

"But- mostly I just play video games," Ruby said, to try to, dispel any undeserved feeling of adequacy.

"Oh, cool. How, is that going?"

"Well, I'm halfway through this space rpg," Ruby said, "Belladonna seems to like watching me, so like, now I have an excuse to do it all day."

"Do you mind if I, stick around to watch you too?"

"I mean," Ruby said. She shrugged. "Sure? I don't know why you'd want to, though- since I don't think you're trying to keep me away from any news channels-"

"Wait, what?" said the magic cat.

"Oh, I'm not sure about, keeping away from it, but the news has been crazy for a week," Glynda said. "The SDC factory got firebombed and there's basically no leads on who did it."

"Woah," Ruby said.

"And what's more, some of their internal data got leaked and there's an unfolding scandal about them suppressing their worker's union, and the CEO apparently has ties with some organized crime groups-"

"- I'm sure Ruby would love some company as she, decides which faction to support," Belladonna said.

"I mean, sure but-"

The cat jumped on Ruby's shoulder. "She wants to spend time with you, you idiot."

Ruby took a moment to process that.

Glynda took a seat next to Ruby on the couch as Ruby started up her story driven space rpg. She explained the plot so far and her current build, and that turned into a general conversation about life. But that creeping sense of not belonging was still there, as the conversation went on.

"I, ah," Ruby said. She rubbed her head. "I admit I don't really know why you like hanging out with me..."

Those words hung in the air, for a bit.

"Well," Glynda said, to the wall, "Maybe it's because we just ended up in the same apartment complex?"

Ruby smushed her mouth to the side.

"After the whole school system imploded and I decided to early retire instead of, try to find something different to do," Glynda said, "Maybe it was comfortable to, just, sort of be around. And you seemed to be getting along okay, in this town, in these apartments, so maybe I thought I might be too."

"Or," Glynda bit her lip, "Maybe it was because, I knew you liked me..."

Ruby turned to her former teacher. "What, really? You could tell?" She felt her cheeks heat up.

"It was pretty obvious," Glynda said, "And, now that I'm not a teacher anymore I can say I also thought it was pretty cute..."

* * *

-OOO-

* * *

Blake found a spot in the sun to lie down and nap and wonder if she hadn't been as discreet as she maybe should have.

Or maybe even if that was the case, the fact that Ruby didn't seem to mind at all was the universe telling her that her mission was just and that she was meant to escape the legal repercussions of her actions.

* * *

"Thank you," Ruby said to Blake, a few hours later, when Blake was just waking up from her nap.

"Oh! Why, yes, of course," said Blake. "But, tell me, for which part, exactly?"

"You said you'd grant me a wish, right?"

"Yeeess..." Blake was sure she would have, figured out something that would qualify as a wish, in those three weeks.

"And when you first said that, I didn't know what to wish for," Ruby looked at the wall. "It's like, sure, there's a lot about my life I'm not exactly excited for, but I didn't really find any of that interesting enough to change-"

"But, I guess, I did want to- to make a connection," Ruby glanced at the ground. Her cheeks reddened.

"Oh! So you-" Blake gestured with her paws. It was a lot more awkward to do so when she had paws instead of hands, but that came with the territory.

Ruby blushed and turned to the wall, and now that Blake looked closer, she saw the telltale mark of a smooch, on her left cheek.

"Ah," Blake said. She smirked and gestured in a bow, which was even more awkward than her previous gesture, but it was worth the flourish. "Then you are satisfied with my wish, then?"

"Yeah." Ruby nodded slowly. "Does this mean you're gonna head out?"

"I think I could stick around," Blake said. "Contingent that you manage to score some more home cooking from this Glynda woman."

Ruby smirked. "I'll see what I can do."


End file.
